Run for the hills earthlings, the sky could be falling come April 13, 2036. That’s right, Russian astronomers have the low down on a killer asteroid named Apophis that could be heading our way in about 25 years. Intially, back in 2004, Astronomers had calculated that in the spring of 2029 the earth would be hit by Apophis in a fly by, now with further evaluation and new calculations the date as well as the odds have completely changed.
Taking a look back in 2004 the odds of being impacted by the above mentioned asteroid had been 1-in-200, now it appears Earth might not be so lucky; with further observation by our Russian astronomers it would seem that there is possibly a 1-in-37 chance of a cataclysmic crash. As of April 13, 2029 it is estimated that Apophis could swing close enough by the earth as to be seen by the naked eye. Scarier still is the chance that it could slip through our gravitational key hole bounding the deadly asteroid right into an express way on route to the planet. This impact could rival the asteroid that piled into the Yucatan peninsula wiping out our predecessors, the dinosaurs.
Don’t panic yet, there are other calculations by nay-sayers that report observations just aren’t definitive enough, and that the calculations of the asteroids path have been far less ominous. The sources state that there is little if any evidence at this time that Apophis could be impacting the earth in spring of 2036 or any other immediate spring following that.
Never the less, Russian Astronomers are not taking this potential threat, according to their calculations, lightly and neither is NASA. “Formal Dialogues”, have been had and the end result for the time being is that there is still time and strategy enough to avert Apophis from creating a worldwide disaster of an impact. What specifically the plan is….well NASA is not elaborating at this time. The Russians are having their own asteroid summit and they are inviting Northern European Astronomers as well as Japan to weigh in on the potential trajectory of the Apophis hitting the earth, global preparedness, and possible maneuvers to employ to re-route the asteroid in the event that it really might be coming our way.
In the meantime, don’t stop paying your credit cards off, nothing has happened yet and as stated above there are still definitive calculations to be made.
